1934 Chevy Sedan - Cup Rod

“I drive it every chance I get. It’s a very fun car to drive.” —Clint Bowyer

NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Clint Bowyer calls his ’34 Chevy sedan a rat rod, but sorry, bud, you’re wrong. There’s nothing rat about this car. The craftsmanship, fabrication, and performance make it a hot rod, or a street rod, or all reet (as Baskerville would say)—but in no way shape or form is this a rat rod. We’ll forgive his mistake, this time, but honestly, it’s his car and he can refer to it any way he pleases.

2/11What gives this ’34 Chevy its aggressive stance is the body, which was chopped 4 inches in the front and 3.5 in the back and then channeled 5 inches over the frame. The bare steel body is also covered in flat clear. The bullet holes in the side are real; before Clint Bowyer rescued the body through eBay, farm kids from its Texas home used it as target practice.

It seems Clint is afflicted with the same disease that we are: eBayitus. That would be the overwhelming addiction to online surfing for sweet iron at affordable prices at all hours of the day and night. We’re developing a 12-step program for it as we speak. During one of his times off the wagon, Clint found the Chevy body on eBay and had to have it—and he knew the guy he wanted to have build it.

There’s a definite perk to being a Cup driver beyond the obvious thrill of getting paid handsomely to wheel that race car nearly every Sunday, and that is that most of them, Clint included, live in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area—the Mecca of all things NASCAR. They are therefore exposed to some of the best automotive fabricators in the world, many of them just good ol’ boys. After getting to know Jay Stone, a fabricator for many race teams but currently at Kevin Harvick Racing, and talking to him about the hot rod he wanted to build, the choice in builder was set in stone and the body was delivered to Jay’s “shop,” put in quotes because it’s actually the modest garage beside his house.

“All he said was ‘I want it low, chopped, nasty, and cool. Oh, and some big whitewall tires too,” Jay says. The body is the only original part on the car; everything else was either handbuilt or custom ordered to spec after careful planning and measurement. There are very few off-the-shelf parts on this one. As with many traditional rods, this car is littered with nods to aircraft engineering, incorporating rivets that were laid out by hand, and nearly every visible bolt safety-wired because Jay didn’t want there to be a single nylon lock nut. “I definitely didn’t want it to be cut with a torch and welded together like other rat rods,” Jay says.

3/11The seats are Speedway Motor’s bomber reproductions with small, gel-padded and leather-covered pads, but the lap belts are the real deal from an Army surplus store.

The chassis was possibly the most elaborate part of the build. All the pieces were measured, laser-cut out of 7- or 10-gauge sheet steel, and then TIG-welded together. Jay designed the frame with three things in mind: a comfortable passenger compartment, reasonable ground clearance, and stiffness. “I had to do all those things and make it fit the curvature of the body.” The car has true framerails but the floorboards are also an integral part of the chassis, allowing the seats to be raised to a normal height, not just end up as pads on the floor. The car might look as though it was built in an aircraft hangar, but in fact, Jay’s garage looks as though it’s big enough for a few bicycles and maybe two cars, if they’re small. But he’s fixing that.

Jay might not be a household name to hot rodders yet, but he has been bending metal for more than 25 years and is currently building his dream shop in Clemmons, North Carolina, where he can finally open J Stone Designs. Clint’s Chevy is his first real complete build, and it’s a doozy, having been done for a little while now and already drawing plenty of attention to its builder among hot rodders in the area. What’s the total investment in this car? Jay wouldn’t say but did admit to having a lot of sleepless nights over 10 and a half months and 2,000 hours of work, so do the math.

4/11The tires, the only real thing Clint insisted on, are Coker Firestones, 6.00x16s in the front and 6.50x20s in the rear. That helped give the car its nice stance. The taillight lenses are off of a ’37 Lincoln and feature Jay’s custom stands. Under the car you can see a Speedway Engineering quick-change. Hanging above his pool table in his game room Clint also has a dummy quick-change that Jay made him. Want to know how big his room is? He parks this car and a retired Jack Daniel’s cup car in there too.

Jay summed up the build saying, “The hardest part of this car? Deciding when it’s finished. The rest is just metal."

5/11Clint drives a Chevy on the racetrack, so it’s only natural that power comes from a Chevrolet ZZ4 350ci with a Comp Cams Thumpr cam. The Tri-power is from Charley Price’s Vintage Speed, which also manufactured the fuel linkage, lines, reproduction Rochester carburetors, and reproduction Edmunds air cleaners. Jay built the headers and capped them with Speedway Motors megaphones. The ZZ4 is a fairly mild crate motor, but it’s not pushing much weight here, so the car is plenty quick. The trans is a TCI Street Fighter 700-R4.

“It’s what General Motors gave us in conjunction with time, weather, and my tools. That’s what you see; no Bondo, no upholstery, no carpet, it’s all right out there to be seen.” —Jay Stone